2012: Despite a recent plea deal, Omar Khadr – a former Al Qaeda “child soldier” – has not been returned to his native Canada. Khadr, now 25, was imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay naval base in 2002 after he was captured in Afghanistan. He was accused of throwing a hand grenade during a firefight, which killed…

On October 22, 1962, Janet Miller received this one-page set of typewritten instructions for the evacuation of military dependents from Guantánamo Bay naval base (GTMO) in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Janet and her children, along with the other dependents living at GTMO at the time, were told by an unspecified “higher…

This photograph was captured on June 12, 1898, the moment when U.S. Marines deployed to Guantánamo Bay and hoisted an American flag sent over to their encampment by compatriots on the U.S.S. Marblehead. The brief, formal Spanish-American War moment illustrated here, with soldiers and sailors gathered in rank and file off to the right, has…

While the current notoriety of Guantánamo Bay is focused on its use as a detention center for alleged terrorists against the United States, this is not the first time in history the island has been used to indefinitely detain individuals. In this photograph, a woman and her children are among the thousands of Haitians…

The story that resonates with me the most is that of Anita and Sue Lewis. Initially, I had no knowledge of Guantánamo Bay naval base as anything other than a prison for detainees of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although I found the stories of the refugees enlightening, the Lewis sisters’ storystands out the…

2012: This week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta refused to transfer five Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay to Qatar. This announcement comes after weeks of talks, with many U.S. legislators strongly opposing the transfer. The Taliban says it is suspending talks because the U.S. has failed to move forward on its promises. Taliban officials say the…

Bisher al-Rawi’s story absolutely struck me most through the first days of this course. Al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen who had been living in Great Britain, was detained by the United States for five years starting in 2002 without being charged with a crime, and for four of those years he was imprisoned at Gitmo. While…

As an immigration scholar, I was conscious of the meanings of “Guantánamo” even before I had the opportunity to teach a course dedicated to its specific histories and origins. For immigrants detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), Guantánamo has had an extensive conceptual and symbolic reach. In We Are All Suspects…

2012: Five Guantánamo Bay detainees have agreed to be transferred to Qatar in recent talks between U.S. and Afghanistan governments. While the Afghani government and the detainees have agreed to the transfer, the U.S. has not yet confirmed the move. The five detainees are described as top Taliban officials and include former interior minister Mullah…

2012: Guantánamo Bay detainee recidivism rates have been all over the news this week, but statistics vary between reports. According to some sources, referencing a report by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, 27.9 percent of the 599 former Guantánamo Bay detainees are believed to have returned to military activity. But according to the Associated…